A new paradigm for being a conscious being here and now on beautiful Planet Earth. A cross between "synthesis", "renaissance", "cryogenics" and "benthic"..."a flowering of creativity that's extremely cool and very deep." And the name of a yahoo e-group I started in 2002, now with around 1800 members, mostly friends of mine. Cheers Jeff

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

These images of the beauty and power of Mother Nature can uplift us from the depths of poison, 'pr' and depopulation and inspire us to regain our long lost love of the Earth, to change our ways of "life" to reflect this love, to 'walk in beauty' as indigenous peoples of all continents have always done, to re-connect with our innate spiritual nature and to realize the immense creativity we each possess. To understand once again the meaning of 'reality.'

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Earthrace/Ady Gil skipper Pete Bethune says thatthe boat is so loud that the crew would be deafened if they didn't wear ear-plugs....'One passenger likened the deafening din of the engines reverberating around the carbon-fibre cabin to standing by the speakers at a Led Zeppelin concert.'"

Discovery Channel's Animal Planet show has aired "Whale Wars" for the past two seasons, showing "reality" footage shot on-board Sea Shepherd's boats as the intrepid "eco-warriors" try to shut down the 'clearly evil' Japanese whalers. The second season generated Discovery's second-highest-ever ratings, reaching millions of people around the world. As I predicted last year, viewers may soon see Capt. Watson's face followed immediately by an advert for Coca-Cola!

As I see it, Sea Shepherd's main function has become entertainment and being tv celebrities; 'saving the whales' is now secondary, but it's their "ticket to success." If helping whales was their primary concern, why on Earth...or any other planet...would they invite a monstrous SPEED BOAT like something out of Batmanto join them in the Antarctica whale sanctuary? The boat's purpose is to go as fast as possible for as long as possible; the captain himself, kiwi Pete Bethune says that the boat is so loud that the crew would be deafened if they didn't wear ear-plugs.

WHAT WILL IT SOUND LIKE TO THE WHALES...WHO ARE ALREADY UNDER ATTACK FROM NOISE POLLUTION FROM MANY SOURCES? SOUND TRAVELS MUCH FASTER AND WITH GREATER INTENSITY IN WATER THAN IN AIR. AND SOUND IS THE WHALES' PRIMARY MODE OF INFORMATION EXCHANGE.

"For all its sleek looks, it was only when the engines started up that you realised the raw power of Earthrace. And the noise. One passenger likened the deafening din of the engines reverberating around the carbon-fibre cabin to standing by the speakers at a Led Zeppelin concert."

AND THIS...in Guatemala the Earthrace hit a fishing boat, killed a fisherman, then hired 'high-powered lawyers' to take care of it, and then was 'experiencing hostilities' in Guatemala!

"It’s a good thing for Watson Bethune is rich enough to avoid prosecution. I wonder how much it cost to kill someone in Guatemala while questing for a world speed record? You can see how broke up Bethune is over the death he didn’t even mention his victims by name they were just generic faceless “guys” to him...Yes hiring “High Power” lawyers to fight the victims you killed and injured is the compassionate thing to do. I sure am glad the crew was fine they might have mounted a credible legal challenge against Bethune unlike some poor local fishermen working to survive."

Shutting down whalers is of course admirable, and I used to be Sea Shepherd's biggest fan...until I started looking a little deeper into the reality of what is going on. Having been involved in dolphin research myself, and being a big whale-lover myself for decades, I realized that Sea Shepherd, whose purpose is "defending ocean wildlife and habitats worldwide", seemed to be avoiding the REAL global threats to the cetaceans while focusing on "giving the media what it wants." Capt. Paul Watson himself says that this is their strategy, in lieu of creating any media of their own, which was the approach taken by Sir Peter Blake, kiwi yachtee turned environmental activist killed in the Amazon.After meeting Watson and top Sea Shepherd people in Belgium last year, I had a few questions, for example, why does Sea Shepherd never even talk about global threats to ALL whales like marine toxicity, marine noise pollution, and U.S. Navy's LFA-sonar, that explodes their inner-ear? Sure, the Jap whalers are an atrocity...but whaling only affects a tiny number of the whale populations.Finally Rosalind Peterson was able to verbalize what I'd been thinking:

"The new motto of most environmental groups is even when an environmental disaster is eminent. Money has overridden ethics for many of these groups. Another environmental group motto, which has been around for years: "…thus ensuring that money is raised, without generating too much controversy, for their corporate headquarters."

This pretty much sums it up for Watson and crew: they are in fact "really trying to stop the Japanese whalers"...BUT they never even mention the GLOBAL threats to whales; their self-stated "obsession" with stopping the whalers has been replaced by their obsession with being tv stars; and, now, in true Orwellian fashion, they have invited a BATMAN NOISE MACHINE to join them in the Antarctica whale sanctuary! Why? Because it MAKES GREAT TELEVISION! Ratings are where it's at..."just go to the instant donor button on our web-site!"

"Australian National University marketing lecturer Andrew Hughes said it was not just awareness Sea Shepherd had created. The organisation was generating "a lot of money" by linking its powerful images, blog updates, and promise of instant action to online donations."

...and that Discovery Communications also hosts the Military Channel...the picture is becoming all too clear.Mainstream media. TV stars! Big Money pouring in! "Eco"-speed boats there to...what was that again? Oh, yeah...save the whales!

Right!If Sea Shepherd and Earthrace REALLY cared more about the whales than about "making great television" there's NO WAY that they'd bring a 'wavepiercing' noise-generator into the Southern Ocean. At those speeds, how would they know if THEY hit a whale?It's just like the situation we encountered in Shark Bay WA a few months ago. We went on a 'whale-watching' excursion thinking it was going to be on a sailboat, but it turned out to be a military-style speed boat. Excessive speed made us all feel endangered, not to mention the marine life, who could barely get out of the way! We told the owner/operator that he shouldn't be allowed to operate in a World Heritage area teeming with life. We asked him if he'd ever hit anything. "Not that I know of" was his response. Only later we learned that a few months before, he had hit and killed a snorkeler...AND DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT until the tourists told him to stop! And he's still in operation!Conccerning Earthrace being an 'eco' boat...this is just as Orwellian as the Shark Bay "Aquarush" being 'eco'...it's just a marketing gimmick. The Earthrace may run on B100 biofuel, but since when is 'biofuel' any less damaging than fossil fuels? Read up on the real ecological cost of "biofuels."

Read this interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva on how the production of "biofuels" is literally taking food out of the mouths of millions of malnourished third-world people.

Two Earthrace crew members even underwent liposuction and had the fat from their own bodies mixed in with the fuel...JUST AS A PUBLICITY STUNT! Many clear thinkers on the global energy scenario have observed that new cheap, renewable and readily-available energy sources are at this point in time THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN...because look at what we are doing with it?

In today's world, what could be stupider than trying to see how fast you can go around the world?In my circle of friends, the whole enterprise of vehicular "racing" and "speed" records is an example of some of the most ignorant and regressive practices humans still practice...almost as ignorant and regressive as WHALING.

Maybe soon we'll Sea Shepherd enshrined as an official branch of the UN and going around with biofuel-powered "green" tanks to enforce bio-region mandates? Pardon me, folks, but am I missing something here? It's the WHALES I am interested in, NOT Paul Watson, the Sea Shepherd celebs, Peter Bethune, the Earthrace celebs, nor Discovery Communications, Animal Planet and the Military Channel!

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

"In summary, the nature and potential effects of these dust storms are very similar to the problems that have been created in places like Iraq, Yugoslavia and Lebanon by the use of DU (depleted uranium), which is mine-tailings mixed with high-level waste from reactors, made into bullets and artillery shells. When fired they vaporize into clouds of radioactive nano-particles and spead on the wind."

"AUSTRALIAN DUST-STORMS: 'RADIO-ACTIVISM' WAKE-UP CALL"

Jeff Phillips7 October 2009 Despite mainstream media response to the recent Australian equinoxious dust-storms, in particular, the ABC, assuring the public that this dust was 'safe', the reality is that enormous amounts of highly radioactive materials ARE in that dust.Film-maker and activist David Bradbury was Australia's only audible voice drawing attention to this scenario, affecting health both locally and globally. Thanks to the Coober Pedy Times for being the only Australian paper to give significant coverage to this, as well. For the full text of this article, focussing on Bradbury and his wake-up call, see http://cooberpedyregionaltimes.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/filmmaker-david-bradbury-red-dust-dump-originating-at-woomera-is-grave-concern-for-public-health/

Bradbury relates how these storms originated in the Woomera area, a remote desert area in the far north of South Australia, where the British government conducted above-ground nuclear tests. According to authorities involved in the tests and responsible for the after-math, around 18 kilograms of plutonium remaining from these detonations is unaccounted for. Translation: after the tests, it seems to have disappeared from where it was 'supposed to be' at the sites. Plutonium is a man-made element and is THE most potent and deadly substance known; it is lethal at the level of millionth of a gram.The dust was also known to contain large amounts of tailings from uranium mines in the path of the storm, including the Roxby Olympic Dam mine, scheduled for expansion into the world's largest extraction cavity diameter of 3 kms. Currently consuming/contaminating 30 million liters of ground water from the subterranean Great Artesian Basin PER DAY, this figure will rise to 100 million liters per day with the expansion. Australia is the driest continent, and severe drought is wide-spread.Bradbury's been generating nuclear awareness for years with excellent films like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain", both state-of-the-art investigative journalism with some basic science education. He may not be a 'scientist' per se, but he's FAR MORE INFORMED than the 'mining industry patsy' that the ABC wheeled out to counter Bradbury's warning about radioactive materials in the dust. See the story for more details...So far abnormal levels of radiation HAVE been detected. Sources in Coober Pedy relate how mining engineers there tested the dust as "hot", and a friend of mine in the Flinders Ranges related that his Geiger counter started 'acting up' as the dust came through."From September 22 to 24, 2009, Australia's worst dust storm in 70 years carried debris from the continent's interior into the coastal cities, including Sydney, and onwards, on Sept. 24-25, to New Zealand. The storm was about 1,000 km long and 500 km wide. A second dust storm hit Syndey early on September 25 and Brisbane by evening of September 26 - it was smaller than the first storm and measured about 200 km wide. The winds from both storms may have carried plutonium particles1 and there were speculations in the blogosphere that even other radioactive substances, like uranium from open mines and DU from military operations, were lofted from the interior. An article by news.com.au on Sept. 25 titled 'Are the dust storms radioactive? Australian scientists study Aussie dust from New Zealand' mentioned that a team of scientists had assembled to determine if uranium dust from South Australia's massive Olympic Dam uranium mine might have ended up in the red dust that coated the Australian east coast and New Zealand. (Filmmaker David Bradbury told the Coober Pedy Regional Times on Sept. 25 that the red dust from the storms likely contained plutonium from the Maralinga test site and uranium dust and radon from BHP Bilton's Olympic Dam, which is currently planning to expand into an open-cut mine larger than Adelaide, which Bradbury says 'will be one of the, if not THE most environmentally criminal act of any mining company in the history of Australia.')"READ THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE...http://www.idealist.ws/australia.phpAnd check this out excerpted from an email to Bradbury from Middle East Consultant Peter Eyre:"On the issue of uranium mining, as Leuren has already pointed out to you, the ongoing secondary contamination is forever once urainum is unlocked from its natural state. Leuren knows first hand the long term health issues of the American Indians and the gross contamination of their land.......no doubt the Australian Government would be more than happy to do the same to the original dwellers of our land. Unfortunately as Leuren and others will tell you.....these aerosols are indiscriminate and therefore go wherever the wind takes them.

I have attached a wind flow chart that I did and you can see that even with this chart one could very easily create a huge dust storm.....its shows an area of low pressure in the Bight and a very strong high level jet stream running over the top from West to East...thats how easy it is.......add to this huge stock piles in the NT and the Dam area and one can see the fate that awaits our once pristine environment......"Australia the lucky country".

Finally the question of the 20 year contract with the US and other nations to practice live firings at many locations in Oz is an absolute joke. As an example pre the "Shock and Awe" attack on Baghdad...Lancelin was used by US forces to practice for that event.....as you already know we have also looked at a bomb/missile blast on Raymond Island that definately is not a conventional explosion and I also sent a photograph of an Oz F111 carrying a bunker buster etc etc......then you have the Government saying that they have given the US permission to import DU weapons but not to use them.....doesnt that in itself raise concern. Most of todays weapons contain uranium components either by Penetrator, Shaped Charge Liner or as a counterballance."And this from Friends of the Earth:"Up to 18 kilograms of potentially deadly radioactive plutonium has gone missing from the former British nuclear weapons test sites in South Australia.

(442.4371) WISE Amsterdam - Scientists preparing for the clean-up of the sites say their best guess is that the plutonium, which has a half-life of about 24,000 years and can pose a grave cancer risk, was blasted into tiny particles and scattered across the continent during non-nuclear "safety trials". Australian officials did not know that the plutonium was unaccounted for until the recent completion of a huge mapping program to identify how much rehabilitation was needed at the Maralinga test area.

In 1968 the authorities thought there would be about 2 kg of plutonium out there in the soil and the area surrounding the test sites, and about 20 kg of radioactive material in burial pits and otherwise under control. Now it is clear that those proportions are in effect reversed.

Britain told Australia that all but about two kilograms plutonium had been either removed or buried but British records of what went into the buriel pits are vague. Britain left "souvenir-sized" lumps of plutonium on the ground at Maralinga, with millions of more hazardous pinhead-sized particles scattered around three explosion sites. Plutonium-contaminated dust is the major health risk: if inhaled, it poses a serious lung cancer risk, and if it enters the bloodstream it greatly increases the risk of bone or liver cancer.

550,000 tonnes of contaminated soil will have to be dug up from areas at the Taranaki site, Wewak (DB notessites around SA I think..) and a third site called 'TM100/101'. The dust further afield is considered to be too widely dispersed and each grain too small to be of concern. After the clean-up, the land will be handed back to its traditional owners, the Maralinga-Tjarutja community.

The Maralinga site, 1,000 km north-west of Adelaide, was the site of the English tests between 1953 and 1963.

In summary, the nature and potential effects of these dust storms are very similar to the problems that have been created in places like Iraq, Yugoslavia and Lebanon by the use of DU (depleted uranium), which is mine-tailings mixed with high-level waste from reactors, made into bullets and artillery shells. When fired they vaporize into clouds of radioactive nano-particles and spead on the wind.OK...enough for now. Will keep you posted as more unfolds. cheers jeffFOR MORE INFORMATION SEE THE FOLLOWING:

"NUCLEAR AUSTRALIA: IN SUPPORT OF CANCER, TERRORISM, AND DEPOPULATION" Jeff Phillips, 16 July 2009

Saturday, September 12, 2009

NOTE FROM JEFF: Finally, here is another voice saying what I've been saying about Capt. Paul Watson/Sea Shepherd since I really came to know them over a year ago. In the course of making a huge effort to communicate with them and offer assistance on taking their work to the next level by creating their own films about who the whales are, I realized that 1) they refuse even to discuss REAL global threats to the health of ALL cetaceans like marine toxicity and noise pollution, and worse, the U.S. naval LFA sonar that explodes their inner ears, and 2) Capt. Watson is on record in support of human depopulation...his exact words are "We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion… I was once severely criticized for describing human beings as being the ‘AIDS of the Earth.’ I make no apologies for that statement.”http://www.seashepherd.org/editorials/editorial_070504_1.html

After receiving then requesting more painted rocks from me, not to mention other gifts, and repeated efforts to communicate with them, and after Alex Earl, director of operations, even invited me onto the Steve Irwin next time I was around, and Executive Director Kim McCoy told me that Watson would be happy to do an interview with me, primarily on "who the whales are", when they realized that I was going to ask Watson about the above issues...on which I think ALL people who are supporting them should know where they stand...they canceled my interview. They could let Daryl Hannah ride the boat, but couldn't give me a 5-minute interview!

And two weeks ago a painting of mine, which had been donated by my friends in California, "Cetacean Rainbow Convergence"

raised over $2000 for Sea Shepherd at their annual art auction in Hollywood, I had asked Watson to address these issues in his talk at the art show. My friend who was there said that Watson said there were "many threats" to the whales, but that was it. I also ascertained that the last public statement by any Sea Shepherdpersonnel concerning the naval LFA sonar was in 2005.

So here Rosalind Peterson is saying what I've been saying for the past 18 months: Sea Shepherd as well as Louis Psihoyos, producer of The Cove, are truly only taking on what can easily be won, attacking "clearly evil" Japanese, while completely ignoring GLOBAL threats to ALL cetaceans because 1) "the enemy" is the U.S. military and industrial civilization...not easy targets for Animal Planet celebrities, and 2) going against these REAL GLOBAL threats would not be conducive to the on-going fund-raising which has become their primary endeavour.

George Orwell said that "Omission is the greatest form of lying."

I am currently networking with several film-makers concerning projects attempting to create awareness on the 'big picture' not only of the full spectrum of threats to whales and all ocean life, but more importantly, on who they are as fellow beings here on Spaceship Earth. More on these projects as they unfold.

Today 'Shock & Awe' is being practiced against all ocean life. Now a story that needs to be told on every major media news program is being ignored...These programs will decimate more than 11.7 million marine mammals over five years, according to U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman, and disrupt marine habitats, pollute our air and water with toxic chemicals, and blast our oceans and sea life into oblivion...“the enemy” is our oceans and its inhabitants…our fish and our fishing industry…our ocean tourism industry…our air and water quality…human health is not even considered…as we are considered “expendable”...KTVU Channel 2, Oakland/San Francisco, John Fowler, had the courage to cover this story. No other major television stations, large newspapers, or large radio stations will cover this story...With the exception of the NRDC taking action against the Navy, few environmental groups are making any effort to let the public know what is happening, preferring instead to send out cute animal pictures to raise money for their corporate coffers. The new motto of most environmental groups is to ignore sticky, uncomfortable subjects, even when an environmental disaster is eminent. Money has overridden ethics for many of these groups. Another environmental group motto, which has been around for years: “We only take on causes we can win”…thus ensuring that money is raised, without generating too much controversy, for their corporate headquarters...If we sit back and wait, for government or corporate assistance, we shall Never get better; Never return to natural health. It is our choice indeed. Live healthy, upon a healthy Earth or die poisoned from the chemicals which corporations profess will assist us.

We find ourselves in the middle of crisis-driven facts and fiction. It is no longer the bare facts reported down the middle of the line by the media…it is now news opinions. Walter Cronkite was labeled “the most trusted man in America” because he brought us, for the most part, unvarnished news reporting. And he trusted us to make our own decisions.

Now every event that is deemed “important” by the media is dissected, fought over, delivered with opinions from every side, even though there no “side” to take. The President gives a speech and no sooner has he completed his speech than the media varnishes what he said in great detail, telling us what we should think and what he really meant. And so it is with each significant or insignificant event…we, the people are not trusted to be given “just the facts” and allowed to make our own judgments. The media thinks we must be driven by the opinions of the media about what it really all means. Politicians work along the same lines with events and opinions. If you lie enough people believe it to be true especially when embellished with confusion.

If the media thinks you are cute, like ex-Governor Palin, she is resurrected with each media cycle which uses her statements and cuteness to sell advertising. If she was not cute, older, had lines in her face, squat, and didn’t wink at men, you would not see her at all in the media cycles. If the media thinks you are not electable or doesn’t like your views they use any method to delete you from the news…if they like you…every cycle, every picture on the media-news shows has a picture of you in the promos or on screen even when others are talking.

Today “Shock & Awe” is being practiced against all ocean life. Now a story that needs to be told on every major media news program is being ignored. The United States Navy has started live-fire and sonar warfare practice in the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico with more 5-year warfare programs waiting in the wings to be used on land areas and in the oceans surrounding the United States. These programs will decimate more than 11.7 million marine mammals over five years, according to U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman, and disrupt marine habitats, pollute our air and water with toxic chemicals, and blast our oceans and sea life into oblivion. It is “shock and awe” all over again except “the enemy” is our oceans and its inhabitants…our fish and our fishing industry…our ocean tourism industry…our air and water quality…human health is not even considered…as we are considered “expendable”.

KTVU Channel 2, Oakland/San Francisco, John Fowler, had the courage to cover this story. No other major television stations, large newspapers, or large radio stations will cover this story. It is not a cute story that will sell advertising or raise ratings. It means blowing the whistle on a current warfare testing expansion that will make everyone uncomfortable...war on ourselves. The new motto of the media is to ignore stories that they don’t want to tell even though they know the telling could save our oceans and millions of marine mammals from disaster.

With the exception of the NRDC taking action against the Navy, few environmental groups are making any effort to let the public know what is happening, preferring instead to send out cute animal pictures to raise money for their corporate coffers. The new motto of most environmental groups is to ignore sticky, uncomfortable subjects, even when an environmental disaster is eminent. Money has overridden ethics for many of these groups. Another environmental group motto, which has been around for years: “We only take on causes we can win”…thus ensuring that money is raised, without generating too much controversy, for their corporate headquarters.

A wonderful teacher and a good friend wrote “Choices” in 2008, which we, the people, all need to make in the face of media and political fear mongering, opinion driven media, and a lack of reporting important news most of the time. I am sharing this with you because I believe that we, the people, can be trusted to make our own decisions and take a higher path. No one says it better.

CHOICES

Words are written, words are spoken, yet truth is laced half way, loose ends, which eventually force us to stumble and fall. Explanations handed out like warm taffy, a quick, gooey fix, a pacifier to keep us quiet for the moment. A sweet, empty treat, but without nourishment of truth, we will no doubt grow weak, unhealthy and controlled.

We are living in a world which we have created, which has ventured so far away from nature, I am afraid we can no longer turn back, find our way home, for all the poisonous bread crumbs we have scattered along our misguided way, have been consumed by the innocent creatures we have forced into extinction. The path is left empty, barren and contaminated. Lost our way, burned our bridges.

We praise yet fool ourselves into believing we are the most intelligent, most beautiful, most divine creatures upon this sick planet, all the while drifting so extremely far off our natural course. We have fouled and poisoned the very Mother that has given us birth, whom has asked nothing of us but to take care of Her, nurture Her and protect Her other natural children. She asks only for Her health and we deny Her plea.

Yet, we, Her children, with all our wisdom and technology mustered in the last 100 years, have harmed, have injured, have pushed our Mother Earth to the very brink of death. We have chosen our own vanity over stewardship. Our own selfish material desires over common, natural sense. Our own grotesque death by poisoning over a simpler life, filled with natural beauty and purity. Our Mother Earth has always offered us this avenue of health and clean environment, yet we have strayed so far, far away, we may never again be able to partake in Her offer.

Pesticide. Herbicide. Fungicide. Insecticide. Homicide. Genocide. Suicide. Which side are you on?

We find more artificial pleasure in the printed green of the dollar than we find from the pure green of a healthy forest glade. We seek a false joy from tiny electronic screens which pull us inward and isolate us. We are told we must own and possess these new inventions and that they will bring us happiness, until they breakdown or are stolen, then we rage against the manufacturer or seek revenge on the thief.

Why is it that we do not possess the same emotions when our fresh, clean air is stolen from our lungs and our waters become rivers of poison? Why is it that we do not possess these same emotions when our forests die before our stinging eyes or bees no longer pollinate our crops and disappear, to never return to their hives? Why do we not raise our voices in unison about these thefts from our natural world of life?

The joy of communications between human beings slips further away, denied within the confines of small, electronic gadgets. Our bodies and minds thirst for the exhilaration of our senses, to rejoice in a simple stroll along an ocean beach, breathe in deeply the fresh salt sea air, feel the cool sands caress our toes and be consumed by the powerful song of sea waves which engulfs our hearts and souls, far removed from the noise of ring tones and scattered, artificial songs, their isolation and separation from natural harmony quite apparent.

We have poisoned our Mother’s lungs, and in doing so, have poisoned our lungs and our children’s lungs. The very chemicals of our genius have become our doom. We must stop in our tracks and use our ingenuity to create a new path. The bread crumbs are gone. We can no longer turn back and hope to rebuild poisoned bridges which have rotted away from our ignorance and arrogance. But we can also not run forward in blind, reckless desire and greed for self-gratification.

We must ALL STOP! Put down the I-Pod, the Blackberry, the Cell phone. Turn off the computer, the TV, the SUV. We must stop and reflect - all of us; take time to truly reflect on what is important, set our priorities. Every adult must escape the ego and bring compassion and true care within their hearts for the children and the elderly, for they are the ones who need our help and strength. We do have a choice. We have always had a choice, and that choice has been the one pure truth of our intelligence and how we choose to use it.

We must make a conscious choice to stop the activities which poison us, and our only home, The Earth. Plain and complex, not simple. And sometimes painful, but the pain which rises from our current path will be much more severe and eternal. Every adult must educate themselves and with that education, enlighten and energize and guide our children. The information is available, you just have to investigate and research. Read, learn, open your mind and find the truth about the chemicals that rule and control our lives. Find out who the corporations are that produce these poisons and demand their production be stopped immediately. Help find natural solutions. Eat, grow and promote organic foods and drinks. Advocate for solar, wind and hydro power. The technology has been present since the 1980’s for ALL of us to drive electric vehicles. Ask WHY we are not allowed that technology. Rise up and demand an end to fossil fuel addiction and the affordable creation of pollution free vehicles.

Demand that your domestic water supplies be tested for a variety of chemicals and heavy metals and demand the true data from those tests. Demand that our air quality be improved, that chemicals and poisons in the air be eliminated and the health of our world’s lungs, the Trees, our Forests, become a top priority.

Advocate for your human and environmental rights. Advocate for the Earth’s rights and advocate for the rights of all living beings on the planet to live and exist in a pure, safe and poison-free atmosphere.

We do have a choice. We have an obligation to the children we bring into this sick and unhealthy world to clean up our decades long mess. To stop the madness of self-destruction and begin the long, tough and painful journey forward. Education, clarity, truth and community, locally, nationally and globally. Our governments will not do it for us. Our multi-national corporations will not do it for us. The CEO’s of oil companies, pharmaceutical and chemical companies, and GMO companies will not assist us.

Without us, without our buying power and our weaknesses, these control corporations do not exist. We, The People, create the governments of the world, create the existence of chemical and pharmaceutical mega-giants. And We The People can and must rise up and demand that these companies either help us clean up our environment and restore the health to the planet or they must not be supported. Any corporate or government officials who do not work with us to restore and renew this planet must be boycotted and asked to leave office. This is beyond argument or discussion or negotiations.

Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, genocide, suicide, homicide. The words ring of horrid truths of evil which penetrate our societies. We must bring a halt to the sicknesses which grip our beings and control our lives and the lives of the innocent, silent beings, whose only joy is to BE.

We do not have 10, 15 or 20 years. We must make a conscious choice and act. We must open our eyes and minds and look up to the sky and not bury our heads in the poisonous sands. We have now experienced two weeks of intense smoke from fires burning in our sick and dying forests. Our air quality has been drastically reduced to a sickening brown haze, filled with chemicals and particulates. We must now recognize that we can never allow this to become “the norm”.

We must not accept the poisons which we are told will help us, assist us in agriculture and health. We must return to nature, for in natural things we find all the answers we require. Artificial and synthetic remedies can only harm our environment, our bodies, our children’s bodies and the health of all ecosystems. Nature supplies us with the remedies, the medicines, and our health; spiritually, physically and emotionally. All we need to do is educate ourselves and act.

If we sit back and wait, for government or corporate assistance, we shall Never get better; Never return to natural health. It is our choice indeed. Live healthy, upon a healthy Earth or die poisoned from the chemicals which corporations profess will assist us.

If you would like to learn more about the U.S. Navy Warfare Testing programs that are ongoing, with more 5 years programs to follow, the following link will give you more information. It is your choice to standup or stand down and only have pictures of “what it was like” for your children to see in old pictures and books. Choices…

In 1995, Rosalind, now retired, became a certified California United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency Agriculture Crop Loss Adjustor working in more than ten counties throughout California. Rosalind has a BA degree from Sonoma State University in Environmental Studies & Planning (ENSP), with emphasis on using solar power, photosynthesis, agriculture, and crop production.

Between 1989 and 1993 Rosalind worked as an Agricultural Technologist for the Mendocino County Department of Agriculture. After leaving Mendocino County she took a position with the USDA Farm Service Agency as a Program Assistant in Mendocino, Sonoma, and the Salinas County Offices, where she worked until becoming certified as a crop loss adjustor for the State.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

In 1990 I began to feel a very strong connection with what I called “aboriginal consciousness.” It was at this time that some of my art began to have that sort of feel to it. Only when I travelled to central Australia earlier this year, however, did I realize the depth of the connection.

For years I felt there was a connection between “aboriginal consciousness” and “dolphin consciousness.” Ever since the late 70’s I had been keen on understanding the whales and dolphins, large-brained mammals like ourselves, who have lived harmoniously on the Earth for tens of millions of years. Dr. John C. Lilly had speculated that the whales and dolphins were “repeater stations” for signals from other water-based life-forms elsewhere in the galaxy (signals that are far weaker than those of the electronic SSE, or “solid-state entity” which is vying for control of the Earth) [see Lilly’s The Scientist: A Novel Autobiography]

I knew that dolphins figured heavily into the dream-time cosmologies of almost every coastal aboriginal tribe in Australia; I guessed that the aborigines and the dolphins were conveying similar information about nature herself and how she works. People had told me for years that a lot of my paintings contained images that reminded them of cellular structures, mitochondria, chromosomes, ribosomes, membranes, nuclei; this made sense in light of my background in biology.

Now it gets even freakier. My friend Moira Timms (Egyptologist, archaekonicist [someone who studies ancient symbols], author of Beyond Prophecies and Predictions] had sent me a copy of a book called The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, which she said she thought was one of the most important books of the (20th) century! In it, Jeremy Narby relates his hypothesis that shamans, medicine men and indigenous minds in general are in direct communication with the global network of DNA-based life, that this intelligence directly imparts knowledge that mainstream science cannot explain.

When I was in central Australia near Alice Springs I connected with some extremely wonderful aboriginal women artists who form the Keringke group. It was like we are doing the same thing only in different parts of the world. They are going beyond traditional aboriginal art, using a full spectrum of colors and creating their own stories, just like I do. I look forward to spending more time with my Australian art sisters!

But when I returned to New Zealand and was examining in depth the Keringke art book, I was totally blown away when I saw Serena Haye’s painting. It was extremely similar to one I had done around the same time in America. Both of us were working directly from within, and neither of us had seen the other’s art.

Further, Huddersfield University geneticist Martin Richards has shown that the origin of ALL humans can be traced back to a single family tree, even an original “Eve” 7000 generations ago. These studies are based on mitochondrial DNA, of which the aborigines of Australia have the oldest of any human beings. In quantum physics a “non-local connection” is a sort of bridge or continuum which simultaneously links people, places or events from different spatio-temporal coordinates; Jung called this synchronicity.

My mind boggles at the meanings of all these connections. We truly ARE all a part of the same web of life, even beyond the Earth…inter-galactic Gaia? It’s as if life herself is non-local, synchronistic, and highly intelligent, and she’s helping us to paint pictures of her!!! I am honoured to be a participant in this process!!!!

The experience described in this story is singularly the wickedest and mostintensely cryo of my entire life.

I would estimate that I’ve hitch-hiked well over 300,000 kilometers (roughly the distance to the moon) since 1981, in 47 states in America, several provinces of Canada (including Newfoundland), in Ireland, and comprehensively all over New Zealand, as well as in eastern, southern and central Australia, including Tasmania.

I’ve had many thousands of rides with as many thousands of people over more than 20 years “on the road”, and if there’s one conclusion I’ve reached, it’s that the REAL world truly is a very friendly place, filled with nice people who don’t mind going out of their way to help you.I have learned first-hand that the violence-soaked, venom-spewing mind-raping atrocity which contemporary America is portrayed as exists only on TV.Maybe on the radio and in the papers, but mainly on TV.You know…television…the ultimate instrument of psychological warfare and the biggest weapon in use by far.The boob tube. The glass teate.The idiot box.And most importantly…the modern technology which brings us Amerika, Inc. and the puppet-regime serial killers in the Blight House!OK, enough already…I’ve graduated from America and on my way to becoming a planetary citizen.

Back to the story.I’ve hitched quite a bit – supposedly pretty risky these days, or so I’m told.It’s funny – somehow people seem to expect the worst.I don’t know if it’s just mind conditioning or cognitional inbreeding from watching the evening news for generations, or if it’s an expression of a deep-seated desire for direness.I still haven’t figured it out.I just find it amusing…and perhaps a little sad…that quite often, when I meet someone new and I tell them that I hitch-hike everywhere, they say something like “Hey, did anything BAD ever happen to you?”This always bugs me.Why the fuck don’t they want to know about the millions of GOOD things that continually occur?If people are always expecting BAD stuff, they can help it to materialize, right?Are their lives so shitty and miserable that they can’t conceive of someone successfully hitching all around for fun, meeting cool people and having a blast?

Well, I don’t know about all that, but what I always do when people ask me this is tell them the story I am about to relate.This story is absolutely true and is verifiable by any number of people.Was this something BAD that happened to me?You be the judge.

On the evening of July 13, 2001 (a Friday) I took the ferry from Melbourne to Tasmania.This was my first visit to Tassie and even though it was mid-winter I was looking forward to getting there.After living in Colorado for several years, and hitching all through the Rockies in temperatures as low as minus 5 degrees Farenheit (with no wind), I wasn’t likely to be uncomfortable there.

I spent several weeks hitching around, meeting people, learning about Tasmania as the unique gem she it – a Gondwanaland remnant island with a very unique geology as well as indigenous vegetation that is the culmination of 65 million years of “evolution”, for example, the Dr. Seuss-looking pandanus trees and the old-growth stands of eucalyptus regnans (the world’s tallest hardwood tree and flowering plant), particularly in the Tarkine region, which at this moment in time are being rapidly decimated by the Gunns Timber Corporation, who are chopping these ancient giants as fast as they can, then grinding them up into wood chips and exporting them to Asia, primarily to Nippon Paper Industries of Japan.This is one of the absolute worst things happening in all of Australia now ( I would say second only to the brutal and on-going low-intensity genocide being waged against indigenous populations all over the continent).

I learned that Tasmania used to be connected to Tierra del Fuego in the days of Gondwanaland.I traveled to south BrunyIsland and met some hallucinogenic fluorescent orange lichens.I went to FreycinetPeninsula and photographed WineglassBay.Just like in the post cards.I learned about the “hydro” company and how they dammed up LakePedder.I fell in love with the photography of Peter Dombrovskii and saw some “devils” at a petting zoo.I frolicked in 6 inches of snow on MountWellington – still the only snow I’ve been in since I left America.

I was having a great time exploring a new place, while at the same time absorbing the down side:the indiscriminate logging and damming, the residual vibrations from the slaughter of thousands of aboriginal peoples…which wasn’t all that long ago, and worst of all…the almost complete indifference to all this of the people in general.

Overall, though, I was meeting heaps of cool folks, seeing a lot of “little Tassie” and having a lot of fun.

I was about ready to return to “Australia”, as they refer to the mainland down there.I figured I’d take one more week and head over to the west coast to check out the scene there.I knew it was very rocky and inaccessible but I wanted to check it out.

Jason and Naomi, a couple I’d met in Maydena, dropped me off in New Norfolk, on their way to a logging protest event in Hobart.It was a beautiful sunny day and I was in a very happy mood.Now here’s where the story really starts.I’d been standing there maybe 20 minutes or so, completely unstressed, as it wasn’t late in the day – maybe one or two pm, beautiful weather.The date was August 9 – second anniversary of the day I first met Sarah McLachlan in Columbus, Ohio!I kind of wanted to get over to the coast – probably a 3-4 hour drive – as there was nowhere of interest in between.Except for Ouse (pronounced “ooze”) – the town where people told me all the “six-fingers” live!See, Tassie is like the Appalachia of Australia – the mainlanders all think it’s inhabited by inbred hillbillies feuding and distilling white lightning!

All of a sudden this Holden Jackaroo pulls up.By Jove, it was being driven by the first person to give me a ride in Tasmania, Michael J. Broadneck.He had given me a ride from Devonport to New Norfolk several weeks before.He even had his little painted rock I’d given him hanging from his rear-view mirror!

I was sincerely happy to see him.What luck – to get picked up a second time by the same person!This had only happened to me once before in all of my hitch-hiking, around Atlanta.

“Bro, what’s up?Good to see ya, mate…”

“Hey, I saw your sign that said ‘Queenstown’ so I went had a word with the missus.She said I could have the afternoon off so I figured if you could kick down some money for petrol I’d carry you all the way across the island.”

“Excellent.Let’s do it.”

We went to the petrol station and I gave him $20 for fuel.And off we went, out of town and into the green Tasmanian country-side, reknowned for its resemblance to parts of England.

Let me give you a little background on Michael J.This is what I remembered from our first journey together.He was a pretty good sized dude, maybe six feet and 200 pounds (90 kgs).He seemed a little dodgy, maybe.Especially when he told me about his uncle whose ‘ultimate fantasy’ was to shoot a fawn…a little Bambi…but he had never been able to find one because the mothers were too good at hiding them!Or when he was boasting that his “30 cousins in Tasmania” would help him take care of the guy who his girlfriend had been fooling around with.Or when he showed me a new video camera he had.He said that someone had left it at a rest-stop, and even though he tried to locate the owner, he couldn’t, so he took it.I even looked at some of the footage on there – it was of a young woman doing gymnastics.I felt bad that she or whomever had lost their camera, and was trying to think of ways to find out who she was…so he could get it back to her!

Or when he insisted that I NOT video-tape him, when I got my camera out to film some scenery.“I’m a member of the Tasmanian Defence Force and we aren’t allowed to be photographed.”OK.Rodger-dodger.Or…now get this…even when we stopped to get a coffee, and he went out to his vehicle (which was out of my view) “to have a smoke”…and was taking a long time to come back in…so long that I went to make sure he hadn’t split with all my gear!See, I was safe because he had left his new video camera with me in the coffee shop!Right!

Enough.The point is, he was somewhat of a shady-seeming individual.But, on that trip we did have some intelligent conversation about stuff.He informed me, for example, that if anyone was out in the wilderness in Tasmania and “something happened to them”…like I’m not sure what?…there’d never be any proof they ever existed, because the “devils” would eat them all up, bones and hair included.If there was a metal belt-buckle that might be left uneaten.Interesting stuff like that.And, he was heavily into raptors…birds of prey…and even gave me a couple of raptor books to read when he dropped me off.

Nonetheless, I considered him a mate.So it was with genuine sincerity and appreciation that I greeted him the second time we met.He had my little rock hanging there.

OK, so we’re off down the road through the countryside near Ouse.

“Hey, Jeff, I was just thinking…there’s this really cool spot over the hill there where I used to go hunting when I was a kid.I bet you could get some great photos there.”

Now, I’m sure there’s heaps of tucked-away beauty spots in Tassie, but my goal now was to get across the island, as it would be getting dark around the time we would arrive.

“Thanks anyway, bro.I think I’ll pass.I want to get on down the road.Is that cool?”

But he persisted in insisting.“It’s really pretty there, mate.You’d be sorry you almost

passed it up if we check it out.Whaddaya say?”

After about fifteen minutes of this, I said, “Hey, so you’re taking me all the way across, right?”

“No worries.”

“OK, let’s do it.”I basically agreed to go just shut him up.But I figured, I’m there…what’s a little longer going to mean?

Instantly we slowed down and pulled a u-ey.We then stopped by the roadside.Michael looked at me and said “Hey, the back door is loose…do you mind getting out to check it?”

Much to my credit-that-didn’t-matter, I responded, “Why don’t you do it?”

“I’m the driver.I’m having a smoke” he replied, slightly nervously.

I thought, “What the fuck?”so I jumped out and stepped back to re-close the door.Little did I know that he had more than likely left the door ajar at the servo intentionally, just so he could legitimately ask me, unsuspiciously, at this exact moment in time, to get out and check it for him.While he…the driver…had a smoke.I didn’t pause to reflect on why having a cigarette could in any way present an impediment to getting out of a vehicle and walking a few meters.I mean, if he had been paraplegic or something, it would have made sense.But no, it didn’t matter.It was a beautiful day and I was hitching in an unknown but wonderful place.I had just been picked up by a dude who had given me a ride before, and who had offered to take me all the way to where I was going!What excellent luck!

Now, he seemed insistent on showing me this place where used to go hunting.I didn’t really want to go, but in order to shut him up about it…in other words, to mollify the ride-provider (this means going along with stuff they want to do that isn’t part of your plan.The reason hitch-hiking works is because driver and hitcher are both going the same way.When desynchronizations from this itinerary occur, it’s either time…in the words of Fleetwood Mac…”Go your own way…” or renavigate the plan.Usually this would be something like, for example, someone who is giving me a ride wants to stop off and see a friend of theirs for a while.If I am invited, which I usually am, I can either come with and hang, or get dropped off to continue hitching, possibly even to get re-picked up by the same person.It’s not a drama…not usually!)…I did it.

Now, think about it.There I was, hitching in the middle of a quasi-remote area of Tasmania – just about as far away as it’s possible to get from America (and still be on Earth) – and getting out of the vehicle to check the rear door.All of my gear was in the vehicle – the sum total of everything I traveled with.If you know me, you know that this is at least one full heap not much short of my own body weight.

What would you have done?Well, I’m guessing that most of you would never even consider hitch-hiking anywhere, much less in Tasmania, and even less with almost everything you owned.

But there I was.On purpose.Voluntarily.By choice.No one made me.After all, I was riding with someone who had given me a ride before.He even had my little hand-painted rock hanging from his rear-view mirror.I trusted him.My usual highly-sensitive vibe detectors were off, or at least turned way down.Or maybe I just wasn’t listening to them.I had been happy to see Mr. Broadneck, and my guard was down.But I was about to have a rude awakening to the fact that I was now in the grips of an insidious MASTER PLAN.

No sooner than I had gotten out, Michael J. floored the accelerator.The vehicle was still running and probably already in gear.As he sped away, he waved “bye-bye” to me over his shoulder.I stood there watching as his Holden Jackaroo (1985, dark blue) disappeared over the ridge.At first I thought he was joking around and was going to come back.Rednecks like to do that kind of thing.But no…he was gone with the wind.And there stood I, all alone, to wonder why.

I have to tell you, as I sit here writing this now, that I’ve told this story at various levels of resolution dozens of times.But as I write this now, for the first time, it’s quite intense.It’s finally making me re-live this thing.Freaky.

Imagine what it was like.Standing in the road in rural Tasmania, having just watched the vehicle you were riding in disappear over the hill, with all your gear.

My first thought was, “Wow, this is really happening.”As the severity of the situation gradually dawned on me, I started to feel really upset, in a way I’d never felt before in my life.I felt totally betrayed, sold out, up the creek without a paddle [footnote:they made a film in Tassie recently, a piss-take version of Deliverance called Without a Paddle].But I also felt an immensely powerful aura of intense positive energy all around me, more powerful than I’d ever experienced before.It was as if I was surrounded by an army of guardian angels, holding me up.This was quite literally real, as real as my stuff having been stolen.

I started to cry.Very rapidly, in my mind, I wondered if I was being punished for something, if this was some kind of karmic experience.But then I realized, after intense reflection and evaluation of my whole life, that I live my life on very positive wavelengths, and that the current of my life had always invariably been that impossibly good stuff always happened to me.

Then at that moment, I knew that one of two things was true:that, if I was at the point in my life where I didn’t need my gear any more, I was ready.But as I stood there, I started to realize that the sun was going down and that it was getting cold.At that moment I knew that I was going to get all my stuff back.With absolute certainty I knew this.I was emotionally distraught, rocked to the core.But when I was watching him disappear, I remember thinking, “He’s got all my stuff.But THIS is me.”All my stuff is just that.It was empowering in a way, to be completely alone with nothing except the clothes I was wearing, in the middle of nowhere at sunset, and know deep down that somehow this was all good.I realized that I am not attached to my possessions, that what I own is cool and useful stuff, for living and doing all the things that I have been blessed with the abilities to do.I NEED my gear to do my life, and I was going to get it all back.This whole thing made no rational sense.I was completely freaked out.Well, not completely.But I was upset.

I flagged down a passing vehicle and explained what happened and asked if they would take me in pursuit of him.This was only about 10 minutes or less since he took off.They wouldn’t do it.There was bound to be sport of some sort on the tube at their house.

So I ran to the nearest house.I can’t remember their names, but they were very nice people.They let me use the phone to call the police, made me a cup of tea and even gave me a really nice wool sweater to keep warm.This was Ouse – the “six-finger” area I had been warned about!

In about 45 minutes a policeman arrived.Now, if this was going to be the horror-story version, when I told him the guy’s name who ripped me off, he would’ve said “My cousin Michael would NEVER do something like that…”

But no, this was not to be.I was greeted by the happy smiling face of Doug Graham, a very nice person from England originally who had been a policeman in Tasmania for about ten years.When I met Doug I somehow knew I was in good hands.He had a very bright, clear aura.He seemed like someone who was already a friend of mine!

I explained what had happened.He told me that this was highly unusual for Tasmania, that not a lot of crime occurs at all, outside of domestic disputes and the occasional drunk driver.He had never seen anything like this in his ten years in Tasmania.

As we rode through the now-darkening countryside, we took a route that Doug reckoned Broadneck might have taken – a back way.At this point we didn’t know where he was going, only the direction he was heading when he disappeared from my view.I explained exactly what had happened, that I had ridden with him before, that I knew his name.Doug was so good that he even correctly predicted the neighborhood where Broadneck lived.

We got to the police station at Shrubby View and looked him up on the computer.There he was.“Michael J. Broadneck, 1985 Holden Jackaroo, dark blue.”He had a few minor offenses but nothing serious.They immediately dispatched an officer from New Norfolk to go to his house.

Doug was giving me a ride back to where I’d been staying in Maydena when we get a call saying that Broadneck had dropped off my gear at the police station!Doug said that this was turning into the craziest thing he’d ever seen!

What happened is that the officer went to Broadneck’s house.He wasn’t there, but the old lady who claimed she wasn’t his mother must HAVE been, and she must’ve informed Michael J. that we were onto him.

Doug again accurately predicted that Broadneck would say something like “Hey, I picked up this hitch-hiker and he touched me on the leg, so I put him out.And here’s his stuff…I don’t want it…”That’s exactly what he said!

When we arrived I saw my gear there.It had obviously been all rifled through.Everything was there…except my cameras and a case containing around 40 really valuable cd’s and cd player.Several thousand dollars worth of easily-marketable hot goods.

The cops go “Jeff, we know you’re telling us the truth.But we’re only going to give you maybe a 5% chance of ever seeing that stuff again.See, now it’s your word against his that the missing stuff even exists.Our hands are tied.The law is actually written in favor of the criminal.He’s probably already sold it all to his drug-dealer or someone.We can question him, we can charge him…but we can’t actually DO anything unless we find him with the stolen property.It’s fucked but that’s how it is.”

At least I had my most essential stuff back, like my clothes and passport.But deep down inside I knew that I was going to get it ALL back.I have my cameras for a reason;they aren’t just idle possessions.I use them all the time, to share what I see and do with my friends who aren’t there with me.And my cd’s – I had another hundred or so down in my pack that he didn’t find, but the ones he had were my most often listened to!Many were very rare and would have been very difficult to replace.

You see, when Broadneck saw me hitching that day, he hatched himself a plan.He knew I had the cameras and cd’s from our first ride together.Remember, he wouldn’t let me photograph him!Wanting to be the “predator” he loved so much (but failing to realize that true predators hunt only what they need for food), he had wanted to get me off the road so that…I would become “devil food”?Who knows what had lurked in his mind?But looking back on it, it all made sense.Before we did the u-turn, I noticed he kept looking at his watch.He supposedly wasn’t in a hurry!And his insistence on going “way back yonder” to get some photos!Then asking me to check the door, when he could easily have done so.

Was I being stupid?No…it’s just that I somehow trusted him.Even though he was somewhat sketchy, he had given me a ride and had picked me up again.He had his little “good luck” rock!But even though my guard was down, I distinctly remember that my gut instinct was telling me all along that something was fishy!My trust over-rode this feeling.

Over the next few days I put out the word on what had happened.I put together a list of the stolen stuff and disseminated it to pawn shops in the area.I told people I’d met.Jason and Naomi, who had dropped me off that day to hitch, invited me to come and stay with them near Launceston.They lived on a hilltop overlooking a really nice valley.I hung out, tending the fire, listening to music and painting rocks.In the evenings we’d drink some wine and watch videos.I’d go for walks in the countryside that reminded me a lot of my native North Carolina.I was being well-taken care of and meeting lots of nice people.

One day I was hitching from Hobart back to Launceston when…guess who? came slowly driving by…Michael J. Broadneck.He hung his head out the window and said to me, in a most sarcastic voice, “So…you’re missing your cameras, mate?”It was as if I was actually seeing this person for the first time;his eyes looked completely black, as if he’d been dead for days.His aura was gray-to-absent.He looked like a flesh-eating ghoul!

But I laughed to myself.Doug the cop had commented that this guy was pretty smart;he knew the law and he knew he was sweet as, as long as they never found him with my stolen gear.He was pretty smart, alright.Too smart!Little did he know what was getting ready to transpire.

Back in Maydena, when this first happened, I happened to speak with the mother of another guy who gave me a ride hitching in Tasmania, Matt Eastwood.He was a very cool dude.We had stopped by a river and he helped me gather up some rocks to paint.I went to his house and helped him unload a truck-load of wood, and went in and met his girlfriend and his son, and played him some of a cd I did with a drummer, because he was a drummer, too!It was a good-vibe connection.

Matt’s mom said, “You know, Matt is somebody that would like to know this happened.”He was a good dude, and had told me his dream was to have a “hobby farm” there in Tasmania.I called up to tell him, but he was gone, so I told my story to his girlfriend.

Now, here’s where the story gets really good.Matt happened to be the postman of Michael J. Broadneck.He already knew the house!

As well, Matt was a hard-core kick-boxer studying moo thai, who was in top condition and doing regular competitions.Kick-boxing is like regular boxing, but even more full-on, if you can imagine that.

Before I could even talk to him myself, Matt and his mate had gone to Broadneck’s house.Matt told me later that he wished I had been there to see what happened.Being bikers, they rocked up to Broadneck’s on their Harley’s.He comes to the door and says “What do you want?”They casually said, “We hear you’ve been having a little fun with our mate Jeff…”When they mentioned my name they said he turned white and started shaking, then went and hid behind his girlfriend and kid!Too funny…especially for such a smart guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was all they said.They didn’t threaten him.They didn’t need to.We’ll never know exactly what he was seeing or experiencing when they dropped my name, but I’m quite certain that the experience of having two bad-ass shaven-head Harley-riding bikers showing up on your door-step questioning you about someone whose entire load of gear you had just stolen and then left him standing in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere…I’m sure this spoke to him in a deeply fundamental way.

Two days later Matt told me that Broadneck had returned all my stuff.He had been giving it out to his “thirty cousins”;when they found out what happened, they made him come and get it immediately!My friends Bruce and Louise gave me a ride over to pick it up.Matt told me that he had asked Broadneck why he did it.“He was too happy”, he responded, referring to my state of mind on that fateful day.

To top it all off, I was looking through all my stuff, and everything was there, all the cd’s, everything.I opened one of the film cans and inside was a little note from Broadneck.It said “Jeff, drop hex and charges.You got your cameras back.You are an easy target.Keep your cameras close.”Torn off was the corner where he had signed his name!!!! (he’s smart, remember?)

Apparently what he was experiencing or expecting was so diabolical that he actually believed I had put a hex on him!I’m not into that kind of thing.All through this thing I did my best NOT to wish bad stuff on this person…this was one of the biggest lessons in it for me.I kept repeating the golden rule over and over again.But if there was a hex on him, it was being created by his own guilt-driven fear and the knowledge of goddess-knows what other atrocities he may have committed.

He never knew this, but if he hadn’t brought my stuff back in a couple days, he would have had more tangible reasons for believing in a hex.Matt had said that if my stuff wasn’t returned in a day or two, that he and his brother, also a biker, were going to go and get him, put a sign on him that said “thief”, and drag him through town with their Harleys!I told this to the cops and they said “Well, we’d make sure we were on the other side of town that day!”The police applauded what went down as “old-school community justice”, the way things used to get done before their hands were tied by the law.

So there you have it.Was this something BAD that happened to me while I was hitch-hiking?It was intense, to say the least.It was by far the most multi-dimensionally full-on thing that’s ever happened to me.But it was all GOOD.It was a profound lesson in trusting chaos, in non-attachment to possessions, in knowing that I AM surrounded by an army of guardian angels, and that the highest guidance is operating at all times.I made friends and became bonded with several really wonderful people;Matt and his mate got to flex a little muscle (I don’t think Broadneck ever DID learn about Matt’s kick-boxing!), and one of the scummiest elements in Tasmania was identified and exposed to the light.

I returned to Melbourne a few days after I got my stuff back, in late August of 2001, where I began work on a unique piece of art entitled “The Ultimate Technology” (which is what we each are!) and vj-ed for New Zealand band Salmonella Dub in early September.I seemed to be fully on-line in a big way.Which was good, because…

The week after that, the World Trade Center towers were destroyed, which was a major “wake-up” call event for the whole world, especially America.Only then did I learn that in the Great Pyramid in Egypt is a time-scale on which a month corresponding to September 2001 is indicated as the date of a major “initiation event for humanity.”I was ahead of the game.

I can fully say that this episode was indeed a life-time spiritual initiation event for me.It made me see that a higher divine consciousness is fully in control, and that the solutions exist before the question or problem appears, as long as we are wide awake, on our toes, staying centered in our hearts and doing our absolute best to live the highest knowledge we already have.That is what I did throughout this time, and it ended up being supernaturally wonderful, improbably amazing, intensely empowering, and good for everyone involved…especially Michael J. Broadneck.After that I felt like I was ready for anything.

The next year I returned to Tasmania and caught up with everyone who had been so nice to me.Doug invited me over, and I listened to some of the music he had recorded at his home studio, and turned me onto some DVD’s by his favorite muso, Mike Oldfield.Bruce got me to do a large mandala painting for his meditation center in Hobart, and Louise had me over to the lodge where she grew up in Bronte, near LakeSinclair.Matt had split up with his girlfriend;he said that when his friends heard about what had happened, some of them tried to enlist his “vigilante” services, unsuccessfully.And as for Michael J. Broadneck, no one had seen hide nor hair from him in over a year.We figured he had to relocate after all that.Or perhaps he, through inexplicable synchronicities, had entered the local food chain, courtesy of those hungry little ‘devils.

Speaking of the “devil”, when Doug was going to interrogate Broadneck the first time, I asked if I could write him a note that Doug would let him read but not keep.He said sure.

In the note I said something like, “Michael, I don’t know what you think you’re doing but it ain’t going to work.I trusted you bro.I even gave you one of my painted stones.I will stay in Tasmania as long as it takes.See you in court.And justice will be done.By the way, sometimes the Great Spirit uses demons to do his work.”

I thought of this as a “psychological implant” at the time, a sort of Djedi mind tactic.But looking back on it, I think this might actually be true.Broadneck seemed like a demon to me, at first, anyway;no doubt Matt and his mate looked like demons to Broadneck as they stood in his front door the day they paid him a neighborly visit.

And since September 2001 America appears to be under attack by…demons?Who knows?Regardless of the true nature of “terrorism” – which is in reality far more of a state-sponsored and media-based psychological activity than it is a product of who we are told is behind it.The “all-purpose bogey” of Al-Qaeda is really just an apparatus of the White House, the CIA and the New World Order.If a demonic spirit is at work, it is only working through people;it is probably nothing more than a manifestation of collective fear and dominant tendencies.

I think the solution to the problems besetting America now can be resolved and come to be seen as somehow ALL GOOD eventually, just like it did with me…but only if a majority of the people wake up to who and what we really are…spiritual co-creators…and actually LIVE the highest knowledge we already possess.

And this experience only increased my enthusiasm for hitch-hiking.Since September of 2001 I’ve hitched several tens of thousands of kilometers more…and to this date, nothing “bad” has ever happened to me.Just in case anyone asks!See ya on the road.